


With What Coin Peace?

by peoriapeoria



Series: Fitter of the Species [24]
Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Africa is a Continent, Awesome Peggy Carter, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Science Bros, spangled banner - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 20:30:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 9,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8504347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: "You were there, weren't you? The procedure. Steve's. I was pretty sure I was hallucinating when she unbuckled me from the table, propped me up and started leading me away. Ran into Red Skull on the way out, except he was still wearing his mask then. I hadn't known it was a mask."
After the fall of SHIELD the Avengers go after the windfall of materials including Loki's scepter and find Baron Strucker and his test subjects. Special Guest Appearance Peggy Carter.





	1. Chapter 1

Steve opened the comm channel, hurtling through the forest. "Report, Aerial."

"I'm more partial to Puck. They're snug as bugs." Tony answered.

"Anything contrary?" Steve took the lack of reply as negatory. The comms would have been handy during the war. Thor, Tony and Sam had the high ground, air, while Steve and Natasha were the running cavalry, and Clint and Bucky were perched. They'd been their eyes and ears since this op started.

HYDRA had come out of SHIELD like rats from a sinking ship, taking with them all sorts of 'artifacts', some weapons, some things that could be used as weapons. Bruce hadn't liked what he'd read about Baron Strucker. He'd returned to a castle from Argentina; it was questionable if he knew it first hand or only by story. He or his part of HYDRA had received some portion of the matériel removed from the Icebox. There were intimations that he was running human experiments.

The sound of energy weapons cut over the engine noise of Steve's bike. "Status."

"They've got tanks." Natasha didn't say more, threading her way between trees. The enemy might have tanks, but they didn't know how to use them. They were going around the terrain, not through it. She went over it, leaning and pushing the flitter. She felt the report of ground to air, heard the blast. She took out targets, reached the battery.

Clint watched the fight come around him. He and Barnes had entered secretly days ago, moving closer as opportunity opened. He watched the air, what he could see through the canopy. Sam was the most noticeable, if you knew to look for the wings. He had to fly lower, but he also looked more like a bird, more dismissable. You could see Falcon and not understand what you were looking at. Thor and Iron Man, once they were close enough, the outline of man in the air was distinctive. He took targets as they entered his kill zone.

There was a force field. That had not been in the intel. Tony swung around for another pass. "Castle is under a dome." At least, a dome would make sense. Alien technology sometimes... Tony flew closer, trying to find some weakness, some point of entry. Something to blow up.

Barnes had greater range than Barton, but that just gave him more to juggle. He took out tires to inspire random shooting and send vehicles driving over infantry, picking off targets variously otherwise to simulate multiple shooters. He jumped down once the HYDRA forces were in disarray. He could move closer and dig in again, though he didn't think HYDRA had the resources to make this a long encounter.

Steve saw... something unclassifiable. The sound was like that of a big switch whipped rapidly.

Clint couldn't breathe, a strange wind whipped around him and spiraled up. He fell to his knees and then onto his side. He blacked out.

Steve smelled smoke and then the char of flesh. Fire. "Report." Clint. He was the only one not to reply. Steve carved through HYDRA to get to their archer.

 _Natasha looked at the surgical suite. The Red Room did everything in batches, even this. It was a ballet just as were their first kills, the culls. Efficient._ Natasha kept moving, heading for the castle.

Sam touched down, running for where Steve said they were. The smell was unmistakable. "What?" He assessed Clint once he was at his side. He nodded as Steve said she had to go mop up.

Tony focused everything he had at the identified power relay. It was satisfactorily explosive. "It's open." Steve's bike and Natasha's flitter zoomed in like live action Tron. He flew in after them.

Steve found Strucker and called him out. "Baron Strucker, HYDRA's number one thug." Steve wasn't opposed to telling a bully the truth they least wanted to hear.

"Oh, but I'm SHIELD's thug, just like you."

"Does that go above or below the illegal human experimentation?", Steve asked. "How many are there?"

_Steve is in Brooklyn. Where else would he be? The war's over. Bucky didn't make it back; a lot of men didn't make it back. Steve's found a regular gig, the office is warm, there's an automat nearby. Everything a single man needed. He's seen the looks he gets, if he's said "Miss, you dropped something." once they match the voice to him. Disappointment mostly._

_Color advertising is becoming a thing. That's hard, but he manages. He can afford to practice; can't afford not to. Even the failures, once or twice, work out for the sci-fi mags. He knows people, some of them are making out._

Steve gets back up. "We've got a second enhanced. Female. Do not engage."

Strucker makes to speak. Steve shuts him down with a shield check. "I've heard the monologues before." Steve opened the comm. "I've got Strucker."

"Clint's got second and third degree burns. Immediate evac required." Sam answered.

"Repeat, there are at least two enhanced." Steve duct taped Strucker's wrists behind his back and scooped him up. "Do not engage." Steve ran down the corridor.

"Bruce, glad you could make it." Tony stood at the wall, Iron Man armor in sentry mode. He pushed the wall, swinging it open. "After you."

"Fine. First Barnes kicks me out of the quinjet and now you're using me as a blast wall."

"Kicked you out of the quinjet?"

"He's flying Clint back so Dr. Cho can treat him, Sam's got credentials I don't." Bruce stops talking. The room is a warehouse filled with Chitauri artifacts.

Tony is trying to figure out how they moved the leviathan and then he's falling up, the rip closing below him, he's being drawn into the explosion the tactical nuke caused. And then he's on a battlefield. It's not Afghanistan, it's humid. Steve's shield is broken, Steve is broken. The others are broken too. Rhodey, Pepper, Barnes and the rest of the Avengers, Darcy. Bruce and Thor are missing.

Natasha finds Tony and Bruce. Clint's in the best hands, and this place needs to be secured.

Tony inhales sharply. "Where's Thor?"

"He's approaching Norway." JARVIS answered.

"Fine time for a booty call." Tony started for the bounty.


	2. Chapter 2

The quinjet touched down on the tower, personnel whisking Barton to the lab, Sam running along with them. Maria waits for Rogers and Barnes in form fitting black.

"What are we doing with Strucker?"

"NATO gets him. I think we have some information on your two enhanced." The seam that started at her right shoulder and curved below her breasts skimmed under her ass to a kick-pleat.

"Where's Phil?" Barnes started peeling out of his armor once they were inside. "I'm taking a shower."

Hill watched him go. "We, and I mean JARVIS, was able to pull some images. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They were orphaned during Sokovia's late war; their apartment building collapsed after a shell was fired at it."

"Sokovia?"

"It's on the way to everywhere special; has had a rough history as a footnote."

"Abilities?"

"He's fast. Sucked the air right out of a cone around Clint, the friction igniting the leaf litter. We'll know more about her once Stark and Banner translate the seized 'research'."

Steve nodded.

Maria continued. "The file says they volunteered."

Steve stepped into the elevator. "What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?"

"That's different. We aren't at war."

"They are." The doors closed on Steve.

Steve washed up in the locker room and headed for the lab.

"Eat." Phil Coulson was in the observation room, eyes not leaving the glass. Dr. Cho beyond the glass was in a bunny suit checking Clint's vitals as a translucent band passed down and back up his body.

"Sure that isn't my line?" Steve picked up a sandwich and bit into it.

"He's going to be fine." Phil looked at the platter and grabbed a wrap. "Better?" He took a bite and another, and was finished quickly. He took the glass Steve handed him and drank.

\----------------

Pietro looked at his sister. "What's wrong?"

"I didn't show him a nightmare, I saw his."

"What?" His own change was easy to understand. His sister's was, weird. She could move things and she also moved people. She scrambled their dreams and fears.

"HYDRA held him. Years, unimaginable decades."

That made no sense. They needed to figure out the next step, getting proof that the Merchant of Death was still in the business of dividing families.

\----------------

Janet settled into the back seat of her car, the driver pulling away from Dr. Pym's residence. She believed that if there was bad news to deliver, it was her job to deliver it. Dr. Pym wasn't coming back to work at Dyne Technology. She'd thought that rest would make him more reasonable, but he just wasn't improving.

It was better to provide severance and start his pension thereafter. It only sped up the timetable a few years; admittedly he wouldn't have been the early retirement type. Possibly Pym would have been the non-retirement type, found mummified in his lab. It had happened.

\--------------

Steve checked in with Clint, Tony and Bruce already in with him.

"Life in plastic, it's fantastic." Clint sang, eyes drinking in the room.

"You're made of you." Dr. Cho looked at Stark. "It would have taken twenty minutes if you'd sent him to Seoul."

"You were here, and you're the best." His smile dropped. "Still Barton." Tony shook his head.

"Terrible." Bruce looked very serious.

"Am I going to be up for the party?" Clint asked.

"Wear flats." Natasha came into the room.

"That's good advice. Drink plenty of fluids, not alcohol, and rest often. Other than that, you're done. Go tell your husband I released you." Dr. Cho watched him leave.

"So, staying for the party? Or want to come back?" Tony inveigled.

"I've got a date with science and medicine in Seoul. Data."

"Lab sweet lab. Don't be a stranger."

"Don't be a patient for at least a month. More if you can manage."

Tony clutched his chest, reminded of the arc reactor no longer an intimate part of him. "Two nights, see you all there." He could get in about thirty hours of science. Maybe more if he slept through the boring parts.

Steve watched Tony go, thinking he might be a bit off. "Have lunch with me, Dr. Banner?"

"Best offer I've heard. Your place or mine?" He took Steve's offered hand.


	3. Chapter 3

She'd been a braver woman when young. Then right was clearer, or maybe she'd just had more vision. Time had a way of stealing certainty. Manhattan was still wearing battle scars, now blended with its regular recreation.

Her only certainty was that her time was running out. The car pulled into the garage, she got out and into the chair she hated. She thought of a soldier fresh from the victory of the base flag. He'd gotten that far by sheer cussed pride.

"Ma'am." JARVIS closed the elevator doors.

"Are they in the same place?"

"Yes, it's been arranged."

She couldn't do this twice. Steve being found, saving New York; it had been easy to convince herself to leave well enough alone, let Steve find a footing in this new world. James hadn't been simply frozen, he'd not just lost what might have been, he'd been put through an unending nightmare.

The elevator opened. She rolled out with best élan. Her soldiers weren't alone. "Doctor Banner." Peggy watched realization dawn on Steve and James' faces.

"Your hair."

Steve was still Steve. "Kettle, pot." Hers was the shorter, rheumatism being harsher than a cowl. Peggy looked at James and smiled. He had a crowning glory, no matter how he managed it. "It's good to see you."

"Peggy, I-- I should have called." Steve stated.

"I'm the elder if not the wiser, so that goes the more so for myself. You've been making a life; I've lived mine. I'm so happy you're getting this chance, much as we messed things up. Couldn't do it right without you, I suppose." Peggy rolled closer, locked the brakes, stood and kissed Steve. Steve held her, as if afraid she'd fall. "I'm not so delicate. I merely cannot run as I used to." Released, Peggy turned to James.

"I wronged you and I have no way to redeem myself. I only can admit weakness and say it was a mad proposition that you'd survived that fall. So much was madness and yet I feared I was seeing connexions that weren't there, tricks of the mind."

"Carter," He had a look of second guessing.

"It hardly matters if you call me by father's name or my husband's, both being long dead. As I mentioned, I lived my life. I'm sorry I didn't save yours, I cannot imagine the theft--" He'd been old in the eyes by the time she saw him, marching beside Steve, creating Captain America out of grit and showmanship. Zola had been his downfall three times. She'd talked Steve into accepting his sacrifice, and it likely was why Steve plunged the Valkyrie at the ice. The possibility-- Steve would have given Howard time if it meant a chance of saving Bucky.

And thus he was left to further 'experiments' by Zola. Peggy only could take comfort that Steve and James hadn't killed each other; one or the other.

The lift opened again, a young man exiting, like and unlike Tripp.

"Sam Wilson, just the man I'd like to talk to." She watched him look from Steve to James to Bruce. She sat in her chair, releasing the brakes. "I don't have the endurance I used to, either." She and Sam looked each other in the eyes.

"They forget what mere humans can manage. I can stew some tea, remind you of the Western Front."

She rolled into the lift. Sam joined her.

"I'm capable of guiding you in making a proper cup." JARVIS quipped.

\------------------

Peggy looked out onto Manhattan, sipping a mug of tea. JARVIS wasn't actually required in making a good cuppa.

"So they just showed up?" There had been a lot she'd missed from D.C. and Sam had been filling her in. She knew Romanova by reputation and her questioning by congress. It was good that Steve had such friends.

"Fresh from a missile attack. Still dropping grit, that fresh. It got worse on the beltway. But now I'm closer to my family and I've got a cool place; meeting all the best people too."

"You're a marvelous flirt, please continue."

"So, I'm in the Triskelion with Brock Rumlow and after the fight a helicarrier is coming in hot. I need pickup and I'm being asked to wait. I jump. This is without wings, remember. I fall into the helicopter, the back not the rotor. Two stories."

\---------------

Bruce moved and guided Steve into the elevator, asking Jarvis for his floor. He'd seen pictures of Margaret Carter, photos, from the war or just after. Steve drew her, even had a chapbook. They'd have made an attractive couple.

"Bruce,"

They'd gotten out of the elevator and Bruce had gone to the kitchen. A cup of tea sounded good. Steve had followed. She got out milk and poured a glass. Steve looked at him, then drank.

Steve said, "I'm happy with you. This is a good century."

Bruce smiled. It was, it was a very good century, even when things were awful. He considered what to make for supper and started, Steve falling in with him.


	4. Chapter 4

Maria tilted her head one way and then the other until the satisfying pop came. Steve hadn't been wrong. The twins were at war; there had been two missiles, the one that killed their parents and one they'd lived with for days until rescue came. Stark Industries it had read.

Victims. There had been a lot of experiments run at the castle. The seized records might allow them to recover the remains. No matter what people thought they agreed to, no one volunteered for that. Telling the right lies would be Strucker's strong suit.

\-------------

The wind up here was cutting, like waiting for the train in the Alps.

He hadn't considered this. He knew that at the Asset's height he was a whispered rumor, a ghost story. It had never occurred to him that Peggy could second guess herself, that she wouldn't see clearly.

She hadn't abandoned him. The world had abandoned her, relegated her to attics and cupboards. That she was aging while he was defrosted and refrozen hadn't truly registered. He'd thought men weren't so stupid. Evil, sure. If you had Peggy, all you needed to do was point her--hell, spin her and let Peggy point herself.

A kinder world-- there was no kindness in a world that left Steve so desperate to fight a war, left Steve so desperately sick and small when his heart and courage and will were bigger than all of Brooklyn. And that's the only way those two could meet, in a cruel world bent to war.

He turned at the noise. Barton. He turned away, back to his thoughts. She was the last of them, those that took the Steve that was and brought forth Steve as she'd now be. He'd raged, Steve had been perfect despite his health and death-wish.

He was here and she would soon be gone. She'd been there. He wasn't letting Steve slip through his fingers a second time because he didn't ask the right questions. He made a noise, waited, then headed back down.

\---------------

Tony hated magic. Magic was Loki, and even if it was just science beyond his comprehension, Tony hated it. Wanda was a witchy woman; she was likely shifting quantum probability. How he had no idea and that pissed him off. Maybe he should sleep. He didn't want to see the movie playing on the inside of his eyelids. He'd had that kind of insomnia before, from things that happened or almost happened. From things that hadn't was new, Tony couldn't shake it.

The movie was bad. The shield cracked apart was-- it wasn't a body, for that he could be grateful, but he knew the science of vibranium. It couldn't crack like that, not without whipping the universal constant. That's how Thor could strike it and Steve hold it, or plunge at the ground tucked into the back. It pulled itself tighter, focusing force out. He didn't need to see the bodies; that's why they were composed, intact, mannikins with aesthetic rivulets of blood. The ripped shield was worse than a mushroom cloud.

How was Wanda doing it? How did they make her capable of doing it? Her brother wasn't near as disturbing, not compared to Bruce or Steve. He wasn't quite ready to put Barnes there. Barnes was pretty disturbing.

Tony had to sleep. He didn't want to, but he'd just start seeing things without closing his eyes. Tony went to the penthouse and Pepper.


	5. Chapter 5

"Barnes, please." She spun the chair within the elevator. It would have been preferable to have been a younger woman, dealing with returned comrades. Eighty would have done. She'd seen Steve privately first knowing that she'd not hold up to scrutiny after Barnes. After all her failures, she could do this right.

She took in the lobby-like space the elevator opened onto, a little like Beirut hotels in the old days. Barnes was waiting in his doorway, reminding her that aging wasn't the worst thing. He looked young, better than he had in the war. He looked like a man that had walked out of hell; she knew he'd done it twice.

Peggy rolled out and towards the door. Barnes led. The hall was pierced with clerestory windows, niches carved into the fabric of the walls. The lounge didn't have the glass walls of a skyscraper apartment. She could see out to the view, but it wasn't overwhelming. 

Minimalist. That wasn't accurate but neither was under-furnished. Two chairs and a leather stool, a glass-topped side table and nested cocktail tables was rather less than the space could hold, but it wasn't obviously less than required. There was ample room to park her wheelchair and settle into the very round chair. It reminded her of a wingback, the way it curved around the occupant.

"You were there, weren't you? The procedure. Steve's. I was pretty sure I was hallucinating when she unbuckled me from the table, propped me up and started leading me away. Ran into Red Skull on the way out, except he was still wearing his mask then. I hadn't known it was a mask."

"I was there. I was at Camp Leigh for his basic training, it wasn't the usual course."

"I figured that out. How did they do it, how long did it take?"

"Minutes. It took minutes. There was a machine that wrapped around him, there was administering equipment, the Serum. Pain, Steve screamed but insisted they continue. Then the pod opened, and putting Steve in bare-chested seemed less well-considered." Honestly, Steve before would have swum in any shirt that could have survived after. Buttons bursting in air--

"Minutes. Takes that long to soft-boil an egg. It didn't take minutes for me. My changes were less obvious and they took longer than minutes or hours, than days. Minutes to remake Steve."

Peggy frowned at his reproach. She'd seen Steve's draft board records, all five of them. He'd cheated death more often before Rebirth than during combat. It was an impressive testament to indignation and fury.

It came to her in a rush. Barnes wasn't uncomfortable being attracted to his transformed friend, as she had thought of his sidelong glances, but in mourning for the loss of attraction. He feared the procedure was even a worse horror than his own. Peggy smiled and gripped Barnes' right hand. They'd had more in common than she'd considered in the war. "I'm sorry." 

"It was war."

Peggy nodded. Schmidt had to be stopped and Steve was very good at that. Col. Philips couldn't have handled such an army, not that Dr. Erskine had intended to provide one. The assassin and the unexpected 'side effects' had both assured they wouldn't pursue more, then.

She hadn't let Steve derail her war effort before the procedure and certainly wouldn't after, not when she thought Steve could be more than a chorus girl or a lab rat. Peggy now suspected that Steve had found his right partner well before the cab ride, but neither had admitted to the other what they felt.

Peggy told Barnes about Camp Leigh. He hung on her words as she gathered every scrap of memory to fold and present to him.

"I can't believe he dropped that flagpole."

"Neither could the drill sergeant. Rogers only got there once men were sliding about, none of them even considering the ropes. He looked it all over and he was pulling out the cotter pin while the sergeant was telling him to get moving."

"You must have been a picture in that jeep."

She wouldn't have thought Steve noticed, except she had seen a sketch earlier that day during her visit with Steve. A whole book revolving around her, around Project Rebirth. No wonder Steve could point out the map locations. "Steve was so vindicated." Running the course to that point had been a trial for him; even riding in the jeep was a fight for him, to not show how bad off he was.

Which is something she realized Barnes had also done all the time she'd known him. So many lies, one on top of another; she'd not had time to parse them all then. For the best, rotten sort of 'best'. It had been war, and they still were left with the consequences after paying so dearly. "So, will you be my escort to this party?"

\---------------

Peggy smiled as she ate. People were scattered about at various small tables. It was a more convivial sort of party than she'd learned to associate with Starks. Young James and Bruce were with Tony, all three talking animatedly. Steve had taken her leave of Bruce and was currently sitting with Sam.

She didn't recognize the beautiful woman that Hawkeye stopped to greet on the way to the buffet. He sat with a man that seemed familiar but she couldn't quite place.

"Phil Coulson," Barnes offered.

He'd aged. Wore it well. Hawkeye grinned as he pulled back from the kiss. Oh.

"They're married, to each other."

She smiled at the clarification. Taking that for granted wasn't yet Barnes' world. Peggy watched Natasha circulate, bantering as she went. She looked at James deep in a conversation that involved drawing in light.

Pepper joined them, setting down her plate and gripping Barnes' right hand in her left. "I'm getting a drink, anything I can bring you back?" Her look encompassed them both.

"Split a brandy with me?" Barnes asked.

It was the most ridiculous thing, she'd not often been in the field with them, but one time they had holed up in a farmhouse that was a smuggling headquarters until the front moved. There hadn't been enough glasses to go around. "Sure."

Pepper headed over to the bar. Natasha vaulted it effortlessly and pulled out a cocktail glass, several small bottles Peggy didn't recognize as well as Bombay Sapphire. When the production was complete she found a brandy bottle, a snifter and poured. Pepper returned to the table, setting the snifter in front of Peggy.

Pepper lifted the cocktail with its pearl onion stuffed black olive. "She's been working on this." She took a sip. "Now I won't be able to order dirty martinis out." She took another sip. "So much wasted time." She leaned into Barnes, hand well past his left shoulder. Then she set to eating.

Peggy picked up the snifter, warming it in her hand while she thought then taking a drink. Barnes took it as she offered it.

"Has Peggy met Darcy? Darcy will be kicking herself for missing tonight." Barnes looked like mischief made flesh.

"Ms Lewis was a political science major, with scientist herding skills." Pepper offered.

That was intriguing. "I've not had the pleasure."

Pepper waggled her fingers and Coulson got up and joined them. He was charming in the way of people that practiced. Peggy expected he still knew at least one magic trick.

"Darcy should be introduced to Peggy. Make sure that happens." Pepper finished her drink and picked up her plate, demobbing. After getting another martini she joined Tony et al.

Hawkeye brought Phil's plate and pushed him down into a seat. "It's an honor, he's a fan, tell him funny stories, not too embarrassing but embarrassing enough." He went over to distract Steve from Sam.

Peggy looked over at Barnes, who was smiling as easy as she'd ever seen.

\----------

"Would you do me the honor?" Bruce was cute, she approved Steve's taste. Barnes had finished their brandy and taken it away. "The best view is on the mezzanine." They went up in the elevator. 

The first serious game of pool was Steve, Clint and Barnes versus Tony, James and Natasha.

Clint looked too happy that Steve sank the 10 as the first ball. Being Steve the 15 and 11 were also off the felt before Tony got a turn. Barnes and James stopped talking as Tony stepped up. He only got the 3, as the 8 and 13 were guarding the 1. Clint got the 9 and the 12 but also pocketed the cue ball on the opposite side. She suspected a running joke, as no one could accidentally manage that. James, replacing the cue ball, nudged the 1 out and into the pocket, then 2 and 4 leaving the cue ball in an adverse position. Clint squinted at the table. Barnes still shot the 14 and 13 down, disordering solid shots. Natasha cleared the table 5, 7, 8.

She watched the mystery woman go up to talk to Barnes.

"Maria Hill. Formerly SHIELD, she works for Stark Industries, Indonesian division. She was there for the end." Bruce spoke softly.

Steve appeared, coming up the stairs with a big plate well laden. Peggy knew what sort of stingy rations the Howling Commandos had run on. "This is a really good view."

The second game was Pepper, Maria and Barnes versus Phil, James and Sam. Pepper broke, Phil peeled off the 12. Maria claimed the 6 and the 2. Tony chatted with Pepper and James caused a strange chain reaction that put the 14 in one corner pocket and the 11 in the opposite side. Barnes took the 1 down and then sent the cue ball into a complicated ricochet leaving the 3 hanging just by the cup and 5 into the opposite corner.

Sam got the 15 down and the 10, with the 13. Natasha and Clint were talking tit for tat. Pepper took the 3 and then the 4, winking at Phil, and the 7. Phil got the 9 and then the 8. There were handshakes and a bit of panto by Clint. This was the kind of crazy you needed.


	6. Chapter 6

Janet was bouncing in the elevator, her prior engagement having been the sit and be bored sort. She'd looked fabulous and sparkly, but this was a dress for movement. Boat neck, trapeze skirt and long points to the sleeves. "JARVIS, make sure you play some dance music."

"Any requests?"

"Whatever the boys like." She thought a moment. "Though slip in "It's Raining Men" later."

The elevator swelled with a remade swing tune. And the lights went off, silence.

\---------

The lights and everything else failed. "Tony!" Pepper called out in the dark.

"JARVIS." Tony asked. "JARVIS?"

Emergency lights lifted, enough to pick out doors and obstacles without negating low light vision.

"Barnes, you're with me." Tony got up, his phone outstretched and glowing. "I'm sure it's nothing." The brightness might fool a three year old or a middle manager.

Peggy gained an honor guard. "This is ridiculous."

Steve looked at her. "May I get you downstairs, it'll be better if you and Pepper are together."

Two could probably descend the stairs abreast if one of them wasn't Steve. She could have done them herself were only the banister different and it wasn't so dark. Instead, she was carried down like a sack of groceries.

Steve settled her onto a couch with Pepper. "Look out after each other."

That was hardly needed as they were within a security cordon, which was reduced as Steve assigned people to tasks. Bruce and James went to whatever lab, Sam and Steve went to secure the building as did Natasha. Phil peeled off also, leaving Maria and Clint.

"That's more reasonable."

It turned out that there was a Pepper protocol, and Peggy went to the safe room with her.

\---------------

"Let me know if anything is missing." Tony started accessing panels.

"You're down here every day." Barnes looked despite his statement. Stark only asked for something when he needed it and had some confidence it would be provided. 

"JARVIS is in charge of inventory."

Barnes nodded. He took out a ballpoint pen, silver, and a small notepad. He sketched in the shapes he wasn't seeing from his last visit. He was seeing a pattern to the missing pieces, one he would like to hope was Tony going through projects like Howard had women. He sat the notepad down and pocketed his pen.

Rhodey and Bruce joined them. "Tone, am I going to be able suit up?"

"Fuck."

"You got him to use the valet." Bruce translated.

"I had him use the valet. I'm cooler at it, it's more a coat check with War Machine." Tony looked frustrated with being too smart for anyone's good.

"Where's it stored?" Barnes asked. "Where are the bots?"

Rhodey left on Tony explaining how to get to the suit staging area. Barnes started looking, Tony saying they were slackers. He found Butterfingers tucked under a lab bench. It's a good hiding spot. U should be easy to find, the deck being larger than the others. U was the most skittish of the bots at the best of times.

Dum-e found him. He half pulled the robot before realizing that's what had grabbed his hand. He checked to see if he'd damaged the bot, and played arm tag, tapping him variously one side and another before Dum-e caught him in the jaws of his hand. Let go, Barnes played a little hand jive with Dum-e. "Where's U?" He was led by the hand.

\-----------

The glow came on in the elevator but JARVIS made no apologies. Janet took out the Wasp compact and pressed a button on her bracelet shrinking down. She hooked her sleeve tips onto buttons and donned her wingpack and goggles. She located the right allen wrench and started to work.

The flight through the shaft was shorter than getting the panel off. She had to rap her foot in morse code to be admitted to the lab. She removed her goggles and wings, resuming her normal size. "What's happening?"

Barnes looked at Tony and Bruce doing increasingly desperate things. "Not sure." He was absently interacting with a robotic arm on a mobility deck. She saw another one further back.

"There's been a cyber break in. I've let Phil know what was taken. JARVIS is offline." Tony was terse, focused.

Barnes' phone rang. Why set it to a Russian ringing ringtone? He answered, listened. "I'll tell him." He put it away. "Rhodes is doing a sweep. You need to get your phone working."

"Why did he call you?" Tony asked.

"Same reason I came down here. They got an Iron Legion suit?"

"Part of one. Parts of several, actually. It'll take them some time." He turned back to the interface.

Barnes did a complicated handshake with the robot and then guided her out. "You look mint, shiny as pennies."

Janet smiled and unbuttoned the sleeves then took his right elbow.


	7. Chapter 7

Pepper and Maria had called for white hat assessment and established that the regular Stark Industries systems were secure and unbreached. They'd been put by JARVIS into lockdown mode preventing infiltration. Clint and Natasha took food with them to support Phil, while Steve went to provision Tony and Bruce.

Sam ran the team through alterations pertinent in JARVIS's absence, making sure everyone had the right contact numbers, reminders set and so on. He was taking on coordination responsibilities. Colonel Rhodes headed back to his base.

Barnes cleared the rest of the food, not that there was much left to store.

\------------------

The metallic hand welded the neck to the head. It was difficult work being a self-made robot. It pulled out a leg and attached that to the pelvic unit. Pulling the torso together used the foot and the wall. It completed the midriff connections. Ultron grabbed delivery boxes and started opening them. He had sent a text to two humans that had bested the Avengers. He would upgrade, but some things couldn't be ordered online. Vibranium!

\------------------

"The Churchill?" Steve looked at the wall projected image from Maria's laptop.

"Ulysses Klaue's most recent base of operations. Satellites have him positioned off the coast of Somalia. He's an arms dealer, black market arms dealer. He is reputed to have a cargo including Stark Industries munitions.

"How did he get them?"

"Any of a number of ways. They may have been stolen from their legitimate purchaser, they may have been sold by corrupt government officials. Sometimes they're traded because the correct training to fire them isn't held by the forces that received them. Sometimes people are just desperate after they've deposed a strongman."

"Anything on the Twins?"

"No. But, this would be the sort of thing they'd be interested in if they knew about it. With Wanda's enhancement, setting a trap might backfire."

"Okay, how do we run this?" Steve looked around the team.

"Go in as buyers. He doesn't talk to middlemen or hired hands." Janet answered.

Natasha looked at her. "How do you know that?"

"He's from South Africa, or his great-grandfather was; it can be complicated. He wants respect. So, we give it to him, with a twist."

\------------------

Janet and Natasha were dressed stylishly practical, while Barton, Barnes and Rogers were dressed like enforcers. Their jackets seemed too tight, but their range of motion was uncompromised. Barnes had his hair pulled back like a fan of Vince Vega. Janet pulled out her cellphone and called Klaue from beside the car as they walked to the ship. "We're here to inspect the merchandise."

Klaue as expected pointed out he only dealt with the man in charge.

"I disposed of the figurehead, so you'll deal with the women in charge or see your payday walk away." She delivered it in flawless Dutch. They walked up the gangplank lowered for them.

Janet looked over the ship in disarray. What a bucket of rust. A crewman opened a bulkhead for them and she stepped over the threshold, Natasha following. Barton intercepted the crewman that tried to shut the door, Barnes and Rogers stepping in around Barton who followed after releasing his small fish.

"You will find that the next missile you receive from me will arrive much faster if you don't complete your payment." He closed the call. "So what would such a pretty lady need with my merchandise?"

"Security, peace of mind, an insurgency. The usual."

Klaue weighed that, clearly not expecting such an answer. "What sort of price point are you looking at?"

"Let's see the caliber of your goods first, the showroom is making me suspicious."

Klaue did exactly that, goaded into the grand tour. "What's that?" She knew what it was, from Steve's shield. It was literally a king's ransom of vibranium.

"Nothing that would interest you."

"Doesn't look like tiny pricks." Natasha said curtly in Russian.

"How do we know the Starks are genuine? Or that they're still good?" Janet asked.

"You would recognize the genuine article, yes? Inspect them. You'll find they're worth the money."

Natasha went to do exactly that. He started sweating as she pressed buttons inside the access panel. "Now, if they are genuine, that will give me plenty of time to look them over. If not, that timer might prove faulty." She closed it back up and started looking over the rest of them thoroughly but with no more button pushing.

Wanda came waltzing in and Klaue aimed a gun at her. The bullets dropped onto his desk, Pietro standing there in umbrage. "No demonstrations needed, we know what we're here for." She turned at the signature of her power.

"Kids. Want some candy? Sorry about your mentor."

Wanda wove her hands, manifesting the red filaments of power.

Ultron made an entrance through the window, landing on Klaue. "The merchandise, I've come for it."

Klaue pointed, righting himself once the robot moved. "Delivery charges are extra, and it's payment first then carry."

Ultron came back and looked at him rocking his head side to side. "How much do I owe you?" More robots flew in, taking away ingots.

"That was gotten at great personal cost. It's worth billions!"

"So are you now, transfer complete." He looked at his cadre. "This part may take awhile." He looked over the three women and two men. "Ready to play a game?"

_Steve was back in Brooklyn. Bucky had died in the war, he'd been captured, all men lost. His body was never found. Steve was saving up his money, he would go to Europe. He wouldn't be able to tell just where Bucky was, but he could at least go there, put some flowers out._

_It was hard, seeing the men that returned. They'd given so much, leaving behind legs and arms, having lost their sight or their hearing. Some just looked lost. Steve still got into fights; arguments, really. He didn't like the way some men treated women and he told them that. Funny thing, they listened to him._

Steve looked around the ship. "Where are they?"

Natasha reopened the panel undoing her button pressing. "They're gone. I was out of it too."

"Where did all the robots come from?" Bucky asked.

"Phil's got Interpol, the UN blue helmets and African Union troops converging. We should go." Clint policed his brass.

Once they got outside they found Sam, looking worse for wear.

"That was way more combatants than I was expecting. I never get that many after you've picked your playdates."

"Yeah, Wanda happened." Steve looked at his friends.


	8. Chapter 8

Dr. Cho walked into her lab, seeing Ultron. "Tony,"

"Scream and your whole staff dies." He walked over to the cradle, the full-feature one. "I'm here for you to make me a new me."

"It prints tissue. That's not a living body."

"If you replace all the parts of a ship, is it still the same ship? The human body replenishes many cells. Besides, I've brought you help." Ultron brought out the scepter and pressed the tip against her breastbone. "And the right material to spin into my tissues."

\---------------

Phil and Maria greeted the team as they approached the locker rooms. They each went over what had been happening once the spray wasn't too loud to be heard over.

"Ultron has been breaking into factories and building an army." Phil informed Barnes, Barton and Wilson.

"The good news, is that it was Hammer Industries he broke into. The bad news, is he also broke into OsCorp." Maria told Steve, Natasha and Janet.

"What has Tony said about that?" Clint scrubbed at his shampooed scalp and rinsed.

"Tony hasn't come out of the lab since you left. Pepper has taken him food and assures me he is alive." Maria addressed Steve's question on how Tony was taking his competitors' parts being used in knock offs.

"I'll go check on him." Barnes wrapped a towel around him and went back to his locker.

"Why would he want that much vibranium?" asked Steve in her fluffy robe.

"It's been the most sought mineral since it's been known to exist." Answered Natasha wrapped in a towel, patting her hair with another.

"If he's building bodies, has anyone talked to Dr. Cho?" Sam asked, pulling on a fluffy robe.

Clint pulled on pants and followed Phil at a run.

\----------------

Barnes let himself into the lab. The three bots were clustered in a dim spot, the rest of the room dark. As his eyes adjusted he spotted the fourth figure at the knot's center. Tony.

"No good news?"

"I can't even access his backups. It's, what is this thing calling itself?"

"Ultron." It did sound straight out of a 1930s serial.

"Figures. Ultron killed JARVIS, wiped him out. The one loss I didn't see, and it's happened." Tony paused. "They sat in a bombed out building, their parents dead below them, with another missile between them. The first could have been mine but the second wasn't. Never a dud. That's the only certainty in this mess." 

"What did you see?" Natasha and Steve had both been very odd on the ship. He knew Wanda had tried something on him in the forest but it didn't agree with her. His phone rang. He checked the ID; it was Coulson. "I've got to take this." he said to Tony. "Yes?"

"U-gin is not responsive. Dr. Cho is not picking up her phone."

"Give me five minutes, load my gear." He closed the line. "What could a mad robot do with the cradle and more vibranium than Howard's wildest dreams?"

"An android with delusions of godhead, he's already gone Skynet."

"You figure out how to stop that." Barnes ran for the quinjet.


	9. Chapter 9

Dr. Cho looked up from the display. "Cell differentiation continues but the preliminary cortex can accept your consciousness stream now." She looked back at the display. "Mental matrix transferring."

"I can read him." Wanda said in awe. "He is dreaming."

"Pattern forming, Ultron's base consciousness. It's more background noise than dreams."

 _Wanda sees destruction, death. No one is spared, no one is safe. The images are specific, are international. Birthday parties, people tending gardens, sitting in squares with friends._ "How could you?!"

"With a little help from my friends." Ultron answered.

"You said we would make a better world."

"And it will be a better world, filled with peace."

"The peace of the grave isn't what we signed on for!"

"Aha, you didn't state any such reservation. You wanted your pounds of flesh from Tony Stark and the Avengers."

"You're a madman!"

"Realist. What is not understood is feared, what is feared is hated, what is hated is fought. I'm merely speeding things up, removing my persecution."

"Giving proof that you should be fought, should be hated." Pietro interjected.

"Should be feared and beyond the understanding of such small minds." Ultron boasted.

Wanda shifts the scepter's control from Dr. Cho during Ultron's distraction.

"There's incoming, the Avengers have followed the thread to the center of the maze. Time to leave." Ultron looked at Dr. Cho.

She shut down the transfer. "No."

Ultron blasted Dr. Cho. He noticed that Pietro had carried off Wanda. Ultron blasted the technicians and pushed the cradle before him.

\-------------

Steve jumped out of the landing quinjet. Barnes walked out as it settled on the roof. Natasha and Clint spread out, while he followed.

Steve reached the lab, taking in the injuries. "Dr. Cho!"

"You can't destroy the cradle. You'll have to get it to Stark, have to defuse it, contain it."

Sam entered the lab, quickly assessing how serious each person's injuries were.

"Natasha, did you copy?"

"I've got a delivery plane preparing for take off across town, no manifest." Natasha answered as she and Clint got back into the quinjet. Steve dove in like she was stealing a base. "Up, Clint."

"I've got a truck, no driver and making its way fast on the bridge. One, sort of a life signature in the back. I could take out the tires."

"No! It crashes, it would be catastrophic. I've got to distract Ultron, draw him out." Steve jumped onto the roof of the truck. A blast came through from the cargo area. Steve jumped down. The side panel split and Steve's shield flew out and skipped along the road.

"That's not good." Stated Clint.

"Confer with Falcon and Nomad." Natasha extended the ramp and set out on the flitter. It took some fancy swerves, but she retrieved the shield and sent it flying back to Steve now pulled onto the roof of the truck. She boarded from the rear doors.

"Package is airborne, I've got clear fallout area." Hawkeye mentioned.

"Negative, I'm onboard." Natasha looked around. Things were quiet above. "I'm sending it to you."

"What?" Clint saw the cradle coming out and he spun the quinjet to take it in the back, hitting all the compartment airbags.

"Get that back to Tony!" Steve called. Trains, why did it have to be trains? Fortunately the passengers were running ahead of them; eventually they'd run out of cars. Or track. Steve exhaled as Wanda and Pietro appeared in the car. "Tell me you can stop this thing. Civilians in our path!" Pietro disappeared.

Wanda concentrated her hands gesturing. The screech of metal filled the car.


	10. Chapter 10

"What's the status on Natasha?" Tony was looking over diagrams of the cradle, cramming for its arrival.

Bruce answered, "She's alive otherwise Ultron would be rubbing our faces in failure. Sam has Dr. Cho stabilized and Barnes is in pursuit."

"I'm sure that's reassuring."

Natasha realized that Ultron had taken them to Sovokia. Why when it put them within strike range of so many countries? Soundlessly she mouthed "Oh." She sent a text to Coulson.

"We have a problem, Ultron is sending bogey signals to telemetry stations." Coulson stated over speaker phone.

"Bruce, you get that." Tony was reading at an incredible speed.

"What?"

"Call them up, tell them they're being played." Tony was in a complicated bit.

\---------------

Janet looked up from pouring over code. Ultron's kernel was undoubtedly Dr. Pym's work. She doubted he was controlling the AI, but it remained that either Ultron escaped or was allowed to wander off. She consulted with Phil.

The operation went off by the numbers. It wasn't pretty, it was heartbreaking. Dr. Henry Pym had once been such a promising scientist and he had created two breakthroughs. Well, he didn't know he was coming in second place in creating AI. They took him in, the FBI did. Janet went to the Tower. She hadn't seen this coming. She should have seen signs.

She went to the gym, and took a quick shower and changed into her training costume. "JARVIS." She forgot. She headed to the lab.

Clint was wheeling in a pod as she approached. "What's going on?"

"You degrade tissues, I'll fry the operating system." Tony told Bruce.

"That won't be necessary."

JARVIS!

"What is going on, this isn't funny."

"Hardly, I'll explain in a bit." JARVIS took the controls and the cradle to its limits.

Tony and Bruce worked to keep up.

\-----------------

"Avengers, we've got a problem." Sam was flying above Sovokia, where the Ultron drones were punching holes in the ground and feeding in pipes. He sent back a video burst.

"Falcon, message received. The capitol is on top of a hot springs. It's one of the highest temperature springs in Europe and it's very sulphureous." Janet answered.

"It's acidic?"

"Explosive."

"Great, just great." Sam switched comm channels, trying to raise the rest of the team.


	11. Chapter 11

The cradle opened. The figure was red, like a flayed human figure. The eyes opened.

"It's alive!" Tony looked at Bruce. "Embrace it, we are mad scientists. Good mad scientists."

"You're putting Descartes before the horsepower. So, I'm new here but we have a world to save?"

"Um, yeah. Clint, you still here? JARVIS, is Clint still here?"

"Yes, he is. No welcome back, no poignant reunion? No cigar?"

"Congrats on the son. Later, JARVIS, I've got to suit up. Call Rhodey."

\----------------

"Thor, where have you been?" Steve grabbed the Asgardian's forearm in greeting, then swept out the shield at the robot. It clanged away in pieces.

"I needed to wash away the tampering in my mind." Thor knocked one robot into another with Mjolnir. "What is happening?"

"Well, we're on top of what may become a shrapnel bomb and evacuating the people is taking time. So, we're trying to hold things together as long as we can. Oh, and the various militaries in the area have itchy trigger fingers. There's been one cry of wolf already."

"Wolves are easy to fight, unless they have sad eyes."

There was the sound of a band, an actual dance band. It reminded Steve of Coney Island and music that sometimes spilled out of bars in the neighborhoods. "Tony, that better be you."

"I'm touched, Captain." The Iron Man armor lowered and landed.

"You can say that again." Steve smiled, keeping an eye out.

"I brought reinforcements."

Steve looked and, "What am I seeing?"

"Whom. I'm Vision." He lowered from upright flight.

"Science is making weirder things than me. Not sure how I feel about that."

Vision domino smacked four robots.

"Positive. Not a private fight, Vision."

"Thank you."

Clint took over from Sam in directing people out of the city, freeing him to go airborne.

"Guys, I think they're coming to a head." The attacks on civilians had been minimal, and he thought he knew why. They made just as good a distraction as Ultron fighting the Avengers, freeing up robots to put in the pipes.

"We need to make sure the spouts aren't raining down on people. And that nothing blows up." Tony called the play, while the Avengers fell back to the perimeter of Ultron's civic works.

Steve looked over to see Bruce standing there. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting a kiss for good luck." He stepped in and got it. Steve raised the shield against some incoming.

"Why do you need good luck?"

"This city is built on so many tunnels and then there's been years of war." Banner shifted into the Hulk. The Hulk walked as gently as possible away.

Pietro ran about forcing concrete slurry into the outer rings of pipes. Vision was having some sort of AI duel that was part poetry and part bashing. Hulk stuck his finger in a bit of ground beside the church in the central square. When Ultron was above he pulled out his finger and released the heated water at high pressure. Thor threw his hammer. Steve, Tony and Sam sheltered Natasha and Clint as pellets rained down.

"Talk about throwing money around." Tony quipped.

Vision landed beside the group. "All days aren't like this, are they?"

"Making it rain is special for birthdays." Tony answered.

Rhodes landed with Pietro, Wanda flying in with Barnes, whose uniform had been torn to shreds from the left side. "What do we do with these two?"

"I didn't like boarding school." Tony opened the faceplate. "So, if you're willing to let me pay your bills and the rest of the team teach you to be decent people that don't go off with strange HYDRA--nevermind, too soon."

"It's better than three hots and a cot." Barnes offered. He looked over at the Hulk. "Engineers, go help him find somewhere to sleep that off." Iron Man and War Machine took off. He looked at himself. "The voyages of the USS Flashdance."


	12. Chapter 12

"So, how was your day at the office?" Phil loosened the knot of his tie then took it off entirely.

"The usual, staved off armageddon, picked up two orphans. JARVIS, please utilize privacy mode."

"You're assuming I've still got all settings in memory."

"Then you better get my good side for Snapchat." Clint went for Phil.

"Privacy mode initiating."

"Bedroom." Phil twisted Clint about and brought him into a hold transitioning into an embrace.

\------------

"Welcome back, sexy grandpa." Pepper slinked over with her dirty martini. Wasn't as good as Natasha's but it was serviceable.

"Don't call me that." said Tony.

"Okay, grandpa." She sipped her drink.

"Sexy's not the part I have a problem with." stated Tony.

"Too bad." answered Pepper.

"Okay, you're right. I've got a brand new Avenger my AI programmed." Tony spun positively.

"I merely taught him what I learned from you." JARVIS noted.

"Which was?" Pepper listened intently.

"I have a right to exist and fear is taught."

"And you were how old when you provided that wisdom?" Pepper asked Tony. She sipped.

"Young. Very young."

"Sexy grandpa." She pulled an olive from the cocktail pick with her teeth.


End file.
